Circus

The Mimmo Scognamiglio Artecontemporanea gallery is pleased to present the first Italian solo show by British artist Sara Berman. The exhibition, entitled Circus, brings together a series of paintings and drawings created especially for the occasion.
Berman’s work has always focused on the social constructs of female identity and overturns the dominance of portrait painting by representing women as Harlequins, or as the artist herself calls them, street thugs or prostitutes. In these free representations of her self-portraits, Berman reclaims the female gaze and power: the symbolism and influence of this historical prankster are reconsidered in a performative manner as Berman examines her own figure through painting in an act of self-erasure.
The oil paintings on canvas, together with the drawings on paper, show the artist interacting with a strong sense of playfulness, movement, and theatricality. Harlequin takes on a more cheerful tone and plays an active role in the narrative, transforming the gallery space into a circus animated by many different female figures. Berman clashes and encounters herself as she reinterprets herself through different and constantly evolving characters: the Ringmaster, the Pierrot, the Aviatrix, the Dancing Monkey, and the Fool. The circus is the setting that welcomes these figures and this exhibition project, a place without boundaries but still marginal, hosting the spectacle of the extraordinary, of darkness mask by a thousand lights.
Berman’s work evocatively suggests a transgressive beauty by combining rebellious figures with splendid materiality: the delicacy of the presentation, the graceful brushwork, and the filigree layering suggest a delicate aesthetic that contrasts with the violent physicality and rawness of the figures themselves. In this way, Berman juxtaposes the visceral and the corporeal with the mysterious and the vulnerable. In the practice of autofiction, Berman also reflects on her previous career as a fashion designer in the construction (and deconstruction) of outfits that are created through real photo shoots in which she interprets her fictional characters before moving on to painting.